- Keep it and provide it with a tank of its own to live in.
- Ask a friend if they might want it. This might sound silly, but there are aquarists who love and enjoy keeping Mantis Shrimps.
- You might be able to find a local fish store that likes them, and may even buy it from you.
- Check to see if a public aquarium in your area may be interesting in having it?
First and foremost, whenever dealing with Mantis Shrimp it is wise to ALWAYS wear a pair of heavy gloves! That said, here are methods you can use to remove an unwanted shrimp from your aquarium.
- If you have found it has taken up residence in a piece of live rock, watch and wait patiently for it to go into its cavity (hole). Once its in the rock, because your live rock may have other marine life on it you do not want to loose, remove the piece of live rock and place it in a bucket or container with saltwater. Pick up the rock, and using a turkey baster or syringe, squirt freshwater into the hole. The shrimp should either come flying out of the hole, or eventually coming out after many squirts, and patience.
- Use the same method mentioned above, but use carbonated water or club soda instead.
- Dip or place the rock into a bucket of freshwater, but only use this method if you are not concerned about losing any other marine life that may be living on the rock.
- You can remove the live rock and place it in a bucket, container, or just the sink without any water at all. With patience and baiting the Mantis Shrimp may crawl out on its own, but this does not always work well. The shrimp can be as patient and persistent as you, and it turns out to be waiting game. You can see what we mean by reading Simmon Buntin's Strange Waves column article "Ye Olde Mantis Shrimp" from AquaLink. His story is a salty tale of monstrous proportions of how he battled against ridding his tank of one of these shrimp in various ways, but finally won.
- Mantis Shrimp are nocturnal feeders, so they are best caught out in the open at night in a dark tank. Once again, sitting, waiting, watching and moving quickly can work if you can catch them out in the open away from their burrow or cavity by scooping them with a net.
- Use natural predators like Triggerfishes to combat them.
- Buy or make a trap. There are many commercial traps on the market designed specifically for catching Mantis Shrimps, or you can build your own, like our DIY PVC Aquarium Trap.
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